The Sports News Report 04.26.2007: Prior, Carlisle, and Goodell
Posted by Dan Owen on 04.26.2007
Mark Prior shuts it down again.
Prior Done For The Season
Mark Prior will not play again this season. In a story we first reported two days ago, Mark Prior underwent arthroscopic surgery and some sort of procedure on his rotator cuff on Wednesday. According to the doctor performing the surgery, this should not be considering career ending, and that Prior should be able to bounce back from this. However, we have heard this story before. Prior has spent gobs of time on the disabled list and had plenty of surgeries. This is a minor blow to the Cubs at present, since Prior was with the team's Triple A affiliate in Iowa because he was unable to show he was ready to pitch again at the majors. Prior has not always been a lame duck, however. In 2003 he was third in Cy Young voting, and the Cubs are praying that he will return to this form next season.
Rick Carlisle Fired As The Indiana Pacer's Head Coach
Rick Carlisle was fired on Wednesday from being the head coach of the Indiana Pacers. We reported on the struggling Indiana team last week, and now Rick Carlisle has been fired. Carlisle stated that it was time for the team to find a new voice, and that he was glad to have spent four seasons with the Pacers. Larry Bird, the team president, said that whoever they hire as the new coach will have to understand that the team will trade away players even against the advice of the coach if it is necessary. It is likely that Carlisle was fired not because the team performed so poorly this season, but because he did not have a great relationship with some of the players, such as Jermaine O'Neal. The Pacers have been having a lot of trouble with player behavior on and off the court, so expect the new coach to be something of a disciplinarian.
Goodell Warns Teams Of Leaking Information To The Media
New NFL commissioner Roger Goodell issued a warning to all 32 NFL teams on Wednesday regarding the leak of information from the NFL scouting combine. Word got out to the media that three top-10 prospects admitted to the use of marijuana. These players were: WR Calvin Johnson (Georgia Tech), E Gaines Adams (Clemson), and Amobi Okoye (Louisville). The interviews are supposed to remain strictly confidential. This is the second breach of the combine confidentiality agreement, after Vince Young's allegedly low test scores on the Wonderlic Test were released to the media. This is yet another showing of the strong disciplinarian that new commissioner Roger Goodell is.
